The Master

Summary: The Master has chosen a dozen men and women as candidates to take his place. But other candidates will force themselves into the action, even as some question the rules, and even the game itself.

The Inn

The
wine was good. That was about the best
thing that could be said about his day, or the fact that he couldn't feel his
feet.

Aranthur
Timos sat back on his stool and drank a little more. He had two days travel left to get to his
home village, high in the hills north of the Great Road, and less than two Chalks
left to pay his bills. He'd made it to
the inn, and he had his sodden feet by a fire. And the wine was good. It tasted
of home--or, he thought in his current mood of self-examination, was the wine
merely good by association? Was he
closer to home and forcing the taste of the wine to meet his expectations?

The
inn was a fine one--one Aranthur had known almost from boyhood. Its stone walls had seen several sieges, most
of them unsuccessful, and even its barns were stone. It lay directly on the Great Road, and there was
not another such inn--with post horses and decent wine--for three days in
either direction. As a boy, Aranthur'
father had gone 'down to the inn' to buy mules and sell his olives and 'stock',
a smoking leaf.

'Something
happening out west,' the young man behind the bar said, seeing that Aranthur
was considering another cup of wine.

Aranthur
rose off his stool by the fire and smiled at him cautiously. They were not quite alone--there were three
older farmers hiding from the heavy snow, and an old priest and his acolyte by
the great bay window, sharing a book and quarrelling about the speed with which
the pages should be turned. The two young men were not quite the same age,
although both young enough that a year or two might be a gulf.

In
the dimmer corner at the east end of the common room, an older man sat by
himself, almost unmoving, a pitcher of what had to be cider untouched at his
elbow.

'I
saw soldiers on the road,' Aranthur admitted.
He walked to the counter, careful to keep his long sword from catching
his cloak. He was still so cold and so
wet that he hadn't stripped off his clothes, even though he was old enough to
know better.

Aranthur
paused, searching for the pun, and found it in Liote, the language of his
village. But he was too slow.

'Hah,
had you there. But you smoked it in
time. You must be a student.' Lecne had
an easy smile.

Aranthur
held out the hand that had been on his sword hilt and offered it to Lecne, who
clasped it. Both men then touched their
foreheads and made the sun-sign.

Aranthur
pointed mutely at the pitcher of wine on the bar.

Lecne
shook his head and poured him a cup from a small barrel behind the
counter. 'Try this.'

Aranthur
nodded. 'I can't afford it,' he
admitted.

Lecne
looked out the great window that filled the front of the inn--an advertisement
of its own, clear glass lavished on building.
Outside, snow fell like rain, and already, the bottom row of panes of
the magnificent window were covered by the stuff. Lecne held out the cup.

'Let
me try my wit on you, friend,' he said.
'You are a student coming home from the City for High Holiday.'

Aranthur
nodded his head.

'And
then you will turn about and return to the City,' Lecne continued.

'Too
true,’ Aranthur admitted.

'And
like most students, while home, you will get money from your parents,' Lecne
said. He smiled, lest his words be taken
as an insult.

Aranthur
smiled back to show he was not offended.
'You might easily be a student yourself.'

Lecne
smiled crookedly. 'I would have liked to
be one, in fact,' he admitted. 'But my
father owns this fine pile of stones, and I expect, as he has no other
children, that I had best learn to run it.
That said, I'm guessing that you are poor, but when you come back this
way, you will be -- less poor.'

Aranthur
nodded. 'You are the very prince of
philosophers, sir, and if you were not so soon to come into the possession of a
fortune and a great responsibility, I'd suggest I might come and study with you.'

Lecne
bowed slightly, to say that he appreciated the compliment and the way in which
it was phrased, but his slight smile denounced any vanity. 'Pay me when you come back. I see you as a good investment, and to be
honest, I haven't spoken to a boy--that is, a man of my own age since winter
started.' He paused. 'And then there is your sword.'

Aranthur
accepted the better wine. 'Indeed? My sword?'

'You
have one,' Lecne asserted.

'I
do,' Aranthur allowed, though he could not see where this line could go.

Lecne
nodded. 'I have heard the same. The Tyrant murdered in front of the very
Temple. Fighting in the streets.’ He leaned close. ‘They say it was three days ago, and there
was a curse, and...'

Aranthur
nodded. 'A farmer said as much to me
this morning, when he found me asleep in his haystack.' He shrugged to indicate that anyone might
have been in a haystack.

Lecne
clearly felt the same. He grinned and
waved a hand. 'And the soldiers?'

Aranthur
had now been in the warmth of the inn's main room long enough to thaw a little
and he let his wet cloak come off his shoulders and caught it on his arm, so
that the other man could see that he was soaked to the waist. 'I hid in the woods and got cold,' he
said. 'I had to cross a rivulet to lose
them.' The loss of the cloak also
revealed the hilt of his sword, which was more complex than most--a cross guard
embellished with two plain steel finger rings either side of the cutting edges,
and a complex ring that linked them.

The
innkeeper's son nodded, eyes on the sword.
'After your purse,' he agreed.

'And
my sword,' Aranthur said. He
shrugged. It had been the wrong thing to
say--if he had a good sword, why hadn't he fought the three soldiers? The question was on the other man's lips, and
yet he was too polite to ask it.

A
middle-aged woman in a fine wool gown appeared from the stairs at the rear of
the main room and smiled at Lecne, who, from their shared ruddy brown hair and
elegant, slim noses, had to be her son.

She
bowed her head in Aranthur's direction.

'Mum,
could you take this man's cloak and dry it?
He's soaked. Had an encounter with soldiers,' Lecne said. 'Master Timos, this is my lady mother, Thania
Cucina.'

Aranthur
bowed again. 'I can take my wet things
to the back, he said. 'Although if I
might be allowed to hang the cloak in the kitchen--'

'Will
you stay the night?' the woman asked.

Behind
her, Lecne gave a minute head nod. Aranthur
surrendered to the luxury of a night in a warm bed, even if there were lice or
bugs. He'd had a week's walking, and
he'd slept hard, and his fingers ached all the time. 'Yes, Despoina,' he said.

She
grinned. 'Don't “despoina” me, young
sir. I'm old enough to be your mother.'

Aranthur
considered a touch of flirtation and decided that the woman might only take
offense. But she flashed him a fine if
matronly smile and took his cloak off his arm.

'I'll
see it's properly baked. I assume you've
been too cold to have bugs. I hate
bugs.' She frowned. 'Where are you from?'

He
bowed again -- respect for elders was an essential part of the life of the
student. 'Wilios,' he said. 'A village on the Amynas river. Not so far
from here.'

'Amynas,'
she said. 'Do your family have
vineyards?'

'Vineyards
and four hundred olive trees,' he said.
'And we grow stock around the house.'

She
made a face and moved her nose. Not
everyone approved of stock -- a cultivated weed that some people smoked and some
ate. 'Well -- to each his own, I'm sure,'
she said. 'I've never been as far as the
Amynas, but we have the wine.'

'My
father never sells our wine,' he said.
'Well, never out of town, anyway.
But he's had his olive oil here.
I came down once when I was young.'

'Child,
you are still young to me,' she said.
'But I must know your father, though I can't think of a man from Amynas
with olive oil.'

A
voice -- a man's voice -- came out of the kitchen like a great argosy under full
sail. 'Timos! Hagor Timos!'

The
owner of the voice squeezed himself out of the kitchen and into the main
room. He was tall enough to have to mind
his head on the beams and wide enough to struggle with the door, and his face
was almost perfectly round, despite which he clearly resembled the young man at
the counter.

He
had garlic in one hand and a very sharp knife in the other hand. 'Which makes you Mikal,' he said.

'Aranthur,'
he said in near perfect unison with Lecne.

The
man shook his head. 'Don't know you,' he
said equitably.

Aranthur
raised his eyebrows. 'But I promise you,
sir, that I am Aranthur, son of Hagor.'

Lecne's
father nodded. 'I won't shake, given the
garlic,' he said. He vanished as quickly
as he'd appeared.

'And
he's my dad,' Lecne said. 'Latif by
name. Cucino, of course.'

Aranthur's
magpie mind immediately ran off on the complexity of Liote gender typing. But the new wine was even better, and he
raised his cup in appreciation. 'My
thanks, Lecne.'

The
temperature down at the floor was more like that of ice than would promote
sleep, and Aranthur nodded again. 'I
would be your debtor.'

Lecne
laughed. 'You will be, too! Da's making a fine meal--almost High Holy
Day. Dumplings with meat in butter. With grated cheese.'

Aranthur
smiled. 'Knocci,' he said. A dish of
home. The wine of home--the Liote
accents and gentle manners of home.

Dama
Cucina summoned her son to point at something in the yard, and Aranthur felt
the weight of his sodden hose. He wanted
out of them, and he crossed the common room to where he'd placed his pack
carefully by the open hearth--a hearth that vented not into a modern chimney
but into an opening in the roof high above. Closer, where the inn's second floor balcony
ended near the vent, hams and cheeses hung in the smoke, and up there was a
whole deer, gutted, hanging like some rotting criminal, and a whole pig carcass
as well.

Aranthur
took his buckler--a small round shield not much bigger than his hand--off the
top of his pack. He'd tied it there
because, being wood and metal, it was waterproof, and he'd hoped it would keep
the snow out of the simple tube of his soft snap-sack of pig hide.

Perhaps
it had, but the time Aranthur had spent lying in snowdrifts and crossing
streams had negated its effectiveness, and all the clothes in the tightly
rolled bundle were wet through. The ache
in his right shoulder was explained--the pack weighed far more than it ought
due to all the water.

He
steadied himself before he could curse.
Cursing was weak. 'Avoid all
mention of darkness,' one teacher had said.

So
be it.

'You
are a swordsman?' asked a gentle voice behind him.

Aranthur
rose from his crouch by the pack. The
older man who had occupied the niche in the east wall was standing at the
counter while Lecne cut him bread and ham.
The older man was also wearing a sword.
It had a broad blade and a simple crossed hilt. The grip had seen a fair amount of use.

Aranthur
smiled carefully. Wearing a sword in
public had certain consequences. 'I might not venture as far as 'swordsman,' he
said. 'I am a Student in the City.'

The
older man's clothes were very plain but very good, Aranthur could see closer
up. He wore plain brown, but it all
matched and the cloth was expensive, and there were touches of elegance--brown
ribbon at the cuffs, a fine standing collar that made the man's doublet look
like an arming coat that a soldier might wear, brown silk embroidery barely visible against the fine wool fabric, and the fit was perfect.
But he had no jewels and a plain purse, and Aranthur was unsure of the
man's status.

He
bowed, nonetheless.

The
older man narrowed his eyes. 'That was
well said. Few men who wear swords are
swordsman, and humility is often the best scabbard.' He nodded, took his bread, cheese and ham,
and returned a bow without introducing himself--uncivil, but not so uncivil as
to warrant offense.

Lecne's
eyes followed the man for a moment and then met Aranthur's--and he grinned.

Aranthur
laughed. 'As did I,' he allowed. 'It was the first thing I did when I reached
the City,' he admitted.

He
could feel the attention of the older man, but the niche was behind him and he
knew that if he turned, someone would have to feel offended. But he was saved by the sound of
bells--dozens, if not hundreds of them, out in the snow.

'Company!'
Dona Cucina called. Outside the window,
they could see a coach, or a heavy travel wagon, indistinct in the snow.

Lecne
made a face and started to pull on a heavy over shirt of new wool that hung
behind the bar. 'We don't have an ostler
just now,' he said.

Aranthur
was already soaked to the waist. 'I'll
go,' he said. He knew animals, and he
could unharness a team, especially if the coachman helped.

Lecne
looked at his mother, who, in one glance, told Aranthur that his place in her
pecking order had just risen, and then smiled broadly. 'You're on, and thanks,' he said, and pulled
the heavy wool shirt back off his head and tossed it to the student. Aranthur unbuckled his sword belt and handed
it over the bar to Lecne, caught the shirt and pulled it on--and was instantly
warmer.

Aranthur
passed the table of farmers and the priest, who looked up. His acolyte was more senior than he had
appeared--his own age or even older. Then he was out into the snow, and his
first step into the deep stuff robbed his feet of all the warmth they'd
accumulated in the last half an hour.

It
was a heavy travel wagon, a wain with
eight horses before it and four more in reserve behind--a monster rig. Aranthur went forward with the courage of the
volunteer--no one could possibly blame him if he made a mistake with the complex
tack, and the thought gave him courage.
He noted, too, that there were men out there in the snow--a surprising
number, all mounted on big military horses and wearing armour. Behind, in the darkness, loomed another
shape--another wain.

One
of the high-sided wagon's side-doors--it had four--opened suddenly. The inside
seemed to be lined in fur--it looked warm and incredibly rich, and the smell of
incense wafted out on the cold air.

'Content
yourself that I have not slit your throat,' said a voice that cut as sharply
through the snow as the scent of incense.
'Perhaps you can ply your original trade here, my dear. At any rate, I won't have to listen to any
more of your foolishness.'

A
woman--Aranthur knew it immediately--all but fell into the snow. In fact, she fell to one knee. She was wearing a gown of silk, edged in fur,
that showed more of her shoulders than was usual in the City and utterly
impractical for the weather, despite the fur.
She had long dark hair and a straight back and her voice dripped with
dramatic contempt.

He
laughed nastily. 'Drive on!' he shouted,
and slammed a stick of some sort against the roof of the wain. His blow only served to dislodge some snow; it
fell on his head. He cursed, using
darkness imagery that shocked even Aranthur, who was a student of the City. Still muttering blasphemous oaths, he pulled
shut his door.

The
woman stood alone in the snow. Closer
now, Aranthur could see that there were indeed men--men in armour--on
horses--all around the great travel wagon. Only a man of paramount importance--the
emperor, perhaps--had a wagon-carriage that big, and twenty knights to guard
him on the road, with spare horses and a wagonload of supplies in the dark
midwinter.

Aranthur
had no idea--no real idea--of what was going on, although the entire tableaux
had passed in Liote, a language that was as common in his village as the more
elegant Lenate of the city. Since he did not understand, he continued
with his original plan and made his way to the front of the great wagon, where
two men were perched high on the box, swaddled in heavy furs.

He
began to climb the steps, even as the near driver cursed. As he did so, his backwards glance crossed
with that of the woman. Her face was
lost in darkness and distance, only a pale smudge with dark eyes, but he
thought her beautiful, or the paleness suggested great beauty, and something
sparkled in her hair. For a heartbeat,
he felt as if she had an aura--a flare of red-gold--

'What
the fuck, mate? He thinks we'll drive
him all the way to the City?' The man paused, catching Aranthur' movements, and
turned. 'Who're you then?' he asked.

'You
want me to take your horses?' Aranthur said.
He was still warm, and standing on the ladder to the driver’s seats was
nice. It kept his feet off the snow.

The
nearer man looked back. 'What's the Duke
up to, then? He gave the 'drive on.'

'We
need to change horses,' said the far man.

'Duke
didn't say nothing 'bout changing horses,' said near man.

'Ain't
ezactly Duke anymore either, is he?' said far man.

A
small window opened behind near man's head--the traveling wagon had as much
glass in it as the inn.

Aranthur
looked back along the wagon. The woman
was standing still, her shoulders square, in the biting wind, watching him. Watching the wagon.

'I'll
take her traveling case,' Aranthur said.

Near
Man looked at him. 'What?' he asked.

'The
Duke's lady,' Aranthur said, stringing the story together in his head, a little
surprised to hear what he was saying.

Near
Man looked back along the wagon, saw the woman, and started. 'Glorious Sun in the Heavens!' he swore.

Far
Man twitched the reins, and the eight horses pricked up their ears. But they were horses--they could smell hay,
and a barn, and warmth and food. They
shuffled, but they did not push forward.

Near
Man looked through the snow at Aranthur.
'Where in all the dark hells are we, boy?'

'Inn
of Fosse,' Aranthur said, hoping he sounded as smug as inn workers and ostlers
always sounded to him. 'He told me to
hand down her case,' he said.

It
was a foolish risk to run. On the other
hand, his mind seemed to be running on its own, quickly and accurately.

Far
Man twitched the reins again, and snapped a whip in the air.

The
horses gave up their hope of food and leaned into their traces, and the great
wheels began to move, crunching the cold, dry snow.

Near
Side got up out of his furs with a grunt and leapt up on the roof. The great wagon swayed as one wheel dropped
into a particularly nasty rut and then righted itself, and the Near Side driver
slipped, cursed, and tugged at something.

The
wagon was moving along now, as fast as a man could walk.

Near
side got a foot back over the seat and dropped a heavy leather portmanteau onto
Aranthur' hands. 'Here's her case,' he
said. Then he tossed another. 'And she'd miss this one, I expect,' he said
with a smile. 'Tell her Erb the Wheel
wished her well, eh, boy?'

Aranthur
nodded. 'I will,' he shouted. The wagon made a fair amount of noise--with a
dozen horses and six wheels and two drivers and all that tack, with bells on
the harness, and an axle that needed a man to look at it and screeched like a bain siedhe and all.

He
was keeping his place on the driver's ladder with his weight, as he had a
leather case in each hand. The wagon was
starting to move faster still, and the snow was deep, and for a moment, he was
afraid that if he threw a case, it would vanish in the snow and be lost 'til
spring. He wanted to serve the
woman -- serve her as best he could...

So
he turned and jumped into the dark.

He
landed in snow deep enough that it went straight up to his crotch, so that the
single layer of linen between his hose soaked through and he felt as if a cold
spike had been driven into his body from below.

The
wagon passed him, moving away faster and faster, and the cold cut through into
his brain even as the cavalry troop went by, their red surcoats visible in
darkness because the wain had lanterns lit.
One of the knights turned and looked at him, the man's heavy sallet
gleaming with an eyeless menace in the near perfect darkness. The knight didn't look human, somehow, and
the hairs on the back of Aranthur' neck stood up even as the rest of him grew
colder.

Why did I do all that? Aranthur wondered.

He
still had the two cases in his hands. He
began to walk back in the darkness, pushing his legs through the drifts. The inn was surprisingly far away--a stade or
even more, and if it hadn't been well lit from within, he might have been
afraid. It was dark. Almost the darkest
night of the year, save two--well into the season when evil could triumph
easily over good, unless special caution was used.

Behind
him, the lanterns on the traveling wagon vanished around a bend in the road,
and he was alone, holding two heavy leather cases. He trudged into the wagon ruts and the snow
was less deep, although there was water in one rut under the ice and his
footing was uneven, and the whole walk was difficult, cold, and--

Outside
the inn, the woman stood in the snow as if the temperature had no effect on
her. She stood staring at him, her lips
moving softly.

Aranthur
had an inkling, now, of what had just happened.
He walked up to the woman, feet crunching on the more shallow snow of
the inn yard.

'Despoina,'
he said. He was prepared to remonstrate.

She
coughed, and a little blood came out of the corner of her mouth. Then she threw her arms around him, and
fainted.

# # #

His
arrival with the woman in his arms threw the inn into a whirlwind of activity. As the value and cut of her gown had
impressed Lecne's mother, she was taken away, warmed by a fire, fed a posset and
then passed up the steps into a private room.
Women of several ages appeared as if by thaumaturgy, and went to tend
her.

Aranthur
went back into the snow once more to pick up the cases he'd dropped when she'd
fainted. He carried them in, and then
put them against the near wall, behind the priest and his acolyte, who both
gave him civil nods.

The
priest even stood. 'That was well done,
especially at this time of year,' he said.
'When the Dark floods a man's mind and culls his thoughts.'

His
young apprentice smiled. 'Tiy Drako,' he
said.

Aranthur
took his hand. 'Aranthur Timos,' he
said. Drako was not a real name--it was
a religious name, the sort of name a man took when he became a monk or a
priest.

'We're
of a size,' Drako said. 'Since I wasn't
brave enough to rescue the princess myself, perhaps I could loan you some dry
hose and a shirt and braes?'

'He
has more of them than he should,' the priest said with a forgiving smile. 'He could improve your condition and his own
as well.'

Aranthur
bowed to them both -- and accepted. 'All
my clothes are wet,' he admitted.

Drako
had a pack-a fine leather pack in a dark orange leather with green trim--a
nobleman's equipment, or a rich merchant's.
The pack was a tube like a quiver, but larger, and had a matching cover
that would keep out rain or snow. It was
not the traveling kit of a holy man's disciple.

Aranthur
admired it.

'My
father was against my vocation,' Drako said.
'But in the end, he did me the decent and provided me with some good
things. There--all I have is
black.' He handed over a pair of black
hose in a wool so fine and soft that they made Aranthur feel warmer just
looking at them, and a splendid linen shirt with embroidery and a crest--and
initials.

L
di C.

The
acolyte saw the direction of his gaze and flushed. 'Ah, the vanity of my former life,' he
said. 'Take it. Keep it.
Lucca di Carna needs your prayers more than his new soul needs the
shirt!'

Aranthur
protested, but the young man was insistent.

He
took his dry clothes to the bar. 'Lecne!'
he called.

The
young man appeared from the kitchen. 'Da's
gone for the churgeon,' he said. 'She
can't see and her head's pounding.'

Aranthur
thought he might know why and found it hard to spare any compassion, but he
nodded.

'I
need to change--and dry my clothes?' he asked.

Lecne
grinned. 'Fair enough--although I'm not
sure but getting to carry that armful wasn't its own reward, eh?' He laughed.
'Sorry--she's so pretty! I hope
that she recovers and spend a few weeks here.
Where's the wagon?'

Aranthur
indicated his clothes.

Lecne
beckoned Aranthur into the kitchen and showed him the great fireplace. 'All the women are seeing to the princess,'
he said.

Aranthur
had his wet clothes off before his new friend was done talking. He was instantly warmer, and he padded about
the hearth hanging his things on drying racks placed there apurpose. As he
changed, he said, 'I'm not quite sure what happened. But the wain--there was at least one--drove
on.' He looked at Lecne and half-close one eye, as he always did when thinking hard. 'There was a man, and he pushed her out of
the door. Later he told the driver the
change horses at Amkosa.'

Lecne's
eyes widened. 'But!' he began, and Dona
Cucina's voice cut through the door and a bell rang.

'More
visitors!' Lecne said cheerfully. He
passed back to the common room through the kitchen door, which had a small
service window in it--really just a spy hole.
Aranthur looked through for a moment and then went back to the kitchen
fire. On the broad trestle table, a vast
pile of knocci was already made, the dough broken up into spoonfuls. There was water on an enormous copper kettle
over the fire. Steam was rising from it,
but it was not at aboil yet. The water
smelled of oregano and something else, and it cleared his head. Oregano was a natural specific against most magery. Every peasant knew it.

When
he was dry and much warmer, he pulled on dry linen braes like breeches that
buttoned at the waist, and thigh-high wool hose which would have laced prettily
to a doublet, had he owned such a thing.
In fact, in his tiny garret in the City, shared with three other young
men, he owned one, bought from a used-clothing seller and carefully
mended. But it was not for a journey
like this one, and he'd left it in his trunk.
Instead, he laced the hose to his braes and tucked in the beautiful
shirt. It was the finest shirt he'd ever
worn--and that was saying something, as his mother's shirts were a byword.

Lecne
returned with a great cow horn and handed it over. 'Grease for your shoes, or they'll be spoiled
by the fire,' he said.

He
went back through the door even as the bell rang again. Aranthur took the horn and sat by the
kitchen fire and began to spread grease--good grease at that. Cow belly fat? Perhaps even goose fat. Something unctuous and fairly tolerable in
smell.

'A
fine inn,' he said aloud. He began to
work the grease into his boots, a pair of mid-calf walking boots with slightly
curled toes, the most prestige that he could afford, which was not much. Nonetheless, they were good boots, had lasted
all of a week's walk and were like to survive the journey home, although not in
the same fine red-brown colour with which they'd started life.

He
smiled. The brave new boots, now turning
mud-coloured, led him by some path of association to the woman he had carried
in, who had smelled like--like the inside of a temple. Some exotic resin--or perfume.

She used power on me. He was sure of it--as sure as a student of
the same art could be. He could still
taste it on his lips and feel it behind his eyes--the most potent piece of work
he'd ever experienced.

She bent my will to get her traveling case,
he thought to himself. It was the only explanation
that fit the evidence. He remembered
that feeling of absolute clarity as he went up the side of the wagon--

Yes. A fine manipulation. So fine, and so puissant, that it had
exhausted her and made her sick, just as his workings master told him--

Who was she?

The
man in the traveling wagon had been called 'the Duke.' The world abounded in dukes, but the most
likely in the event was the Duke of Mitla, who was reported dead three days
before in a riot in his home city.

'Ain't ezactly Duke anymore either, is he?', the
far man had said.

Aranthur
realized with a start that he wasn't hearing any sounds from the inn. He'd been working on his boots a long time. Lecne had not reappeared.

Aranthur
listened. He couldn't hear the drone of
the farmers talking. He made his way to
the door, feeling foolish, and looked through the tiny service window.

And
ducked back.

Soldiers.

The
kitchen was lit only by the fire, and was otherwise dark. Aranthur stood away from the service window
and looked. He moved cautiously back and
forth.

There
were at least four of them.

Off
to his right there was a doorway he hadn't seen used. Aranthur made his way to the door, and as
he'd hoped, it led to the back stairway, with a sort of alcove that also looked
into the taproom from the far west wall.
He leaned his back against the wall and listened.

'...You're
not understanding, boyo. I'll have wine,
and my friends will all have wine, and then we'll have whatever else we
fancy.' The man's tone ill-suited his
words--he sounded unsure of himself, a little wild, a little afraid.

Aranthur
moved very carefully along the alcove. It
was dark, and there was no light in the stairwell, which was no wider than one
man's shoulders and curved sharply too.
He moved so slowly he felt that he was a glacier in the mountains above
his village, watching the people far below.
He harmonized his breathing and began to sub-vocalize his
ritual--carefully. So carefully.

'Doesn't
this shit hole have any women?' a big man asked. 'Wine!'

Aranthur
could see the man's hand as he struck Lecne a glancing blow.

'I'll
have to get m-m-more from the --' there
was a pause.

The
main door opened. A cold came in, so
cold that it affected Aranthur and almost snapped him out of his ritual trance.
It was palpable like a blow.

'An’
who the fuck might you be?' another soldier said.

'It's
my inn, and I might well ask you the same,' said Master Cucino. He was not visible to Aranthur, but he was
moving forward--the door creaked.

'Not
unless you want a foot of iron in yer guts,' said one of the soldiers. 'You don't ask fuck. We ask.
Where are the women? Where's the
wine?'

Cucino
was an innkeeper and he was not a choirboy.
'Keep a civil tongue and keep your blasphemy for your own Dark places,'
he snapped. He passed into Aranthur's
sight. Behind him was a heavyset man
with stooped shoulders and a deep scarlet hood--the nearly universal sign of a
medical professional.

Lecne
said, 'Da -- they --' he paused.

'She's
upstairs,' Master Cucino said to the churgeon, who attempted to pass the soldiers. But an arm was put out to bar his way.

'Who
is?' asked one of the soldiers. 'No one
goes anywhere.'

'No
one gives orders in my inn but me,' the keeper said. 'Sit down and you will be served.'

'That's
it, fuckwit,' said the nearest soldier, who had a red cloak over his arm and a
vicious, hooked scimitar that locals called a storte at his belt. He had
the light eyes of a man drunk or mad.

The
soldier reached almost casually for his sword hilt.

Aranthur
had little direct experience of violence and men of violence, but he knew from
riots in the city that once blood flowed, events took on an inexorable
rhythm. As the soldier drew his storte and exposed the vicious blade, Aranthur
took a careful gliding step towards the chimney corner where all his
possessions were. He was not just
willing. He was strangely eager.

The
soldier raised his blade -- and for a moment, it appeared that his sword was only
so much threat -- a bluster. But then,
powered by fear or hatred or simply winter dark, he cut.

The
blade struck the innkeeper's arm and cut it deeply--so deeply that his left
hand dangled. Blood fountained. Master
Cucino seemed to deflate.

Aranthur
moved another step closer to his own sword and his buckler atop his pack. He was out of the shadows, now, and his
ritual was wavering--the violence, the blood, the innkeeper's face, his own
fear...

He
lost his working. But he'd expected it,
and he moved faster, with a sudden long step and a grab for the sword, which
leaned in its scabbard by the fireplace.

No
one challenged him because of what had happened across the room.

The
man in the fine brown clothes rose to his feet.
Aranthur caught only the end of the movement--it focused all of the
soldiers on the man in brown.

Lecne's
hand was just going to his father's arm -- his mouth opened.

A
second spurt of blood washed a table, and Master Cucino began to topple...-

The
man in brown put his right hand on his sword hilt. The motion was economical and not
particularly fast. He had three men within the reach of his arms, all
armed -- one with his sword in hand, and the other two already reaching for their
blades.

Aranthur's
hand closed on his own sword hilt.

The
innkeeper, his eyes still watching the ruin of his left arm in horrified
fascination, fell forward onto a table already slicked with his own blood.

The
man in brown drew.

The
soldier who'd maimed the innkeeper raised his blade, a broad grin crossing his thin
face, admiring his cut. Aranthur's attention was still on the man in brown,
whose draw was also a cut that rose through the entrails of the nearest soldier
and finished over his head just in time to parry a desperate, tardy slash from
the original attacker -- so neatly timed that they might have practiced it.

The
man in brown pivoted on the balls of both feet and cut down with all the power in his hips, beheading the second man close
to him while the man tried to draw his sword. But the same pivot powered his
left arm to cross draw a heavy-bladed dagger from behind his back, with which
he continued to guard against the sword he'd first parried with his own.

And
then Aranthur had to concentrate on the explosion of motion in his own sphere of action.

The
acolyte threw a dagger from the table by the window. It struck hilt first, but stunned the biggest
soldier as he, in turn, drew his own hooked storte. By ill luck, the big man, who wore a munition
breastplate and heavy tassets, was closest to Aranthur and now, ignoring the
dagger handle which had hit his head, turned and lunged at Aranthur, focusing the
younger man on his own fight, even as the acolyte rolled across the table,
unarmed but game.

The
soldier reached for Aranthur's still scabbarded sword, and acting on his
training, Aranthur let him take the scabbard and pulled back his left leg,
leaving the other man's cut to whistle past him -- leaned back and pulled, and the
motion each man made drew the scabbard off the weapon, and Aranthur thrust
without thinking or planning, simply committing to the attack as he'd learned
it. He was, in fact, too eagerly terrified
to think about his actions, and his motions seemed slow, as if his limbs were
wrapped in string.

And
then his sword was a hand span deep in the big man's bicep.

His
victim bellowed, tried to raise his arm and the pain stopped him.

Aranthur -- still
running off school lessons -- rotated his hand from thumb up to thumb down,
pushing outward with his hand, so that he twisted the blade in the wound and
ripped the sword out of the flesh that trapped it. Someone was roaring -- a huge shout that
filled the taproom.

Tiy
Drako hit the wounded man waist high.

The
big man fell, his hand clutching at his opened bicep. A piece of him flapped as he moved and his
head struck one of the oak tables.

Behind
him were two more soldiers, and one raised a crossbow -- and pointed it at the man in brown.

Aranthur
realized, in one beat of his heart, that the man in brown had somehow put all
three of his assailants down. And the
crossbow was pointed at him--

Aranthur
was not well-trained enough, nor agile enough, to cross the space. His hand was
fully extended--he couldn't have thrown his sword, even if he'd thought of it. He saw the man in brown's eyes as they
understood the imminence of death, and the anger this sparked.

There
was a flash--and a sharp bang like
the sound a smith makes when he hits piece of iron very hard.

The
crossbowman dropped like a doll abandoned by a naughty girl. The last soldier standing whimpered, and
dropped his sword.

The
man in brown moved silently with a rolling gait like a sailor--lunged, and his
sword passed through the back of the soldier's head and emerged from his mouth
like an obscene tongue. He, too, fell
forward to join the corpses on the floor.

Aranthur
saw that the woman from the snow was standing on the balcony above, the
churgeon lying flat on the floor by the alcove like a summer solstice
worshipper. She was holding the churgeon down, and she held a wand--

Aranthur
understood. It was, in fact, a puffer.
The tang of sulfur in the air was his evidence. At the same time he thought this, his eyes
tried not to look down to the creeping pools of blood at his feet.

When
he was a boy, he and his father had killed a deer. The deer had bled out on snow -- the red
spreading, spreading--

At
his feet -- his unshod feet -- the man he'd hit in the arm was writhing, and his
warm blood was soaking through the fine black hose that the acolyte had given
him.

The
man in brown was moving from downed man to downed man, finishing them with
careful thrusts. He stopped by
Aranthur's shoulder.

'You've never fought before, have you?' he
said. He sounded like an angry
fishwife. His voice was shrewish, as if
the ideas that young men avoided fighting for their lives annoyed him.

Aranthur
was watching the wounded man. He'd made
the mistake of meeting the man's eyes.
The man's mouth opened and closed, and blood was pouring out of his arm.

'He'll
bleed out in a few minutes,' the man in brown said. 'Or you could behave like a gentleman--like a
swordsman--and either finish him or
stop the bleeding. Your choice.'

Tiy
Drako was nursing his own shoulder from the flying tackle he'd made, but he sat
up. 'We must save him, of course,' he
said.

The
man in brown frowned. 'If he were mine,
I'd kill him.' He looked Aranthur in the
eye. 'Who teaches you, boy? That imposter Vladith?'

'Master
Vladith is in fact my swordsman--,' Aranthur said. He felt light headed--the woman was looking
at him, and she had a silver hair net with pale jewels at the interstices of
the net, and this drew his eye dangerously.
He saw again the fire in her aura and he wrenched his head away from the
sight of her and found the remnants of his own ritual still singing in the
recesses of his mind and he used them to build himself a shield.

All
in one beat of a man's heart.

Tiy
was already on his knees by the downed man, digging his thumbs into the wound,
trying to stop the blood. 'Sunrise!' he
said. 'I can't stop it!'

Aranthur
knelt by the man he'd hit and put a hand above the wound--and realized for the
first time that he still had his sword in his hand. He put it down with too much emphasis.

Then
he got both hands on the man's shoulder and pushed as hard as he could.

The
flow of blood lessened immediately.

To
his left, the churgeon was on the floor by Lesce's pater. Aranthur dug his thumbs into the man's
shoulder and the man screamed. Tiy was
playing with a string-- a loop of linen thread.

'You
really are trying to save him,' the man in brown said. 'He'll hang, you know.'

'I
won't send another man to the dark tonight,' Aranthur said. He hadn't been sure exactly what he was going
to say until his mouth opened, but once he spoke, he was surer of himself.

The
man in brown cut most of a wool shirt off of the crossbowman and used the
fabric to clean his sword. He bowed to
the young woman in the hairnet, who stood above them like a goddess in the
theater of the City. 'I believe I owe
you my life, Despoina,' he said. Even
his thanks were surly.

She
frowned. 'You sound none too pleased.'

Aranthur
was scarcely aware of the exchange, because he and Tiy were fighting the man's
body for his life.

'Why
should I be pleased?' the man in brown asked.
'I failed myself and misjudged my adversaries.' He shrugged.

'You're
welcome, I'm sure,' the woman answered, her Liote pure the way westerners spoke
it. Then she stepped back from the
balcony, even as Tiy Drako got his loop of linen into the blood and gristle.

'Hold
on,' he said.

Aranthur
could taste salt in his mouth and was having a hard time not looking at the
dying man or smelling the result of the man's voiding his gut and bladder in
his agony. His heels were drumming on
the floor.

'Slaves
of darkness!' the man in brown spat.
'Just kill him!'

A
heavy staff struck the floor near Aranthur's head. 'Be silent,' the priest said. 'If the boys choose to save the man, what business
is it of yours, slayer?

The
man in brown put his sword back in his scabbard and stepped back, offended.

The
priest knelt in the blood. He began to
sing tunelessly.

The
three of them laboured together. Tiy and
the priest knew their business and all Aranthur had to do was keep the thumbs
of his two hands locked together until relieved, like a besieged army. The two sang together in low voices.

Lecne
burst in among them. 'Are you a healer,
priest? Then for Sun's sake come and
save my father.'

The
priest neither looked up nor ceased his singing.

'My
father is a good man. This man was a
killer!' the young man said.

The
singing went on.

'What
kind of justice is this?' Lecne shouted at the priest. 'My father is dying and you are serving a
murderer!'

The
priest sat back on his heels, his face gray.
He made the sign of the sun over the soldier's head.

'You
can let go, now,' Tiy said softly.

Aranthur
had trouble focusing and his hands were stuck together with the man's
blood.

'I
might ruin it,' he breathed.

'You
can't ruin it,' Tiy said. 'He's dead.'

'Now
will you come to my father?' Lecne begged.

'I
will,' Tiy said. 'My master has spent himself.'

'On
the criminal!' Lecne spat.

The
old priest slumped and hung his head.

Tiy
Drako rose smoothly to his feet. 'We
treat all men the same,' he said carefully. He was not yet as good as most
priests at controlling his face and his voice.

'All
men are not the same,' Lecne said.

'How
wise of you,' Tiy said. 'No -- I did not
mean that -- I'm sorry.'

He
went toward the huddle around the fallen innkeeper. The churgeon was working as fast as he was
able, but he had no power, only craft.
The woman stood in the alcove from which Aranthur had emerged, reloading
her puffer from a small flask.

Aranthur
got up off the floor slowly. Most of
all, he wanted the blood off his hands, and his feet. Without apparent volition, he began to move
stiffly to the kitchens, where he knew there was hot water.

He
found himself nose to nose with the woman.
She had put a new charge into the barrel of the deadly object and was
winding the clockwork wheel that drove its spirit--or so he understood. She looked up under her lashes at him.

He
avoided her eyes. 'If you have the
power,' he said quietly, and paused. 'You might use it.'

She
winced. 'If I had any power left, you
think I'd use this cannon?' she asked.
'You--?'

She
looked away. 'I'm sorry,' she said. She was not, in fact, sorry. 'Where are they, then? she asked
sweetly. 'More than one?' she asked.

He
had to push past her. They were very
close. He was aware of her aura and
aware, too, of the blood all over him.
She smelled like a temple--incense and a bitter tang like musk. 'You
could help the innkeeper,' he said.

'I
can't expend my reserve,' she said.
'I--overspend. You are the boy
who brought me in from the snow?'

The
churgeon was shaking his head.

He
nodded. 'Ah--you burn yourself?'

She
nodded. 'Why did I tell you that?' she
asked.

'Can you save the innkeeper?' he asked.

'Probably,'
she admitted, not meeting his eyes. He
could smell her breath. She ate cloves.

'Can
you channel?' he asked her.

She
looked at him and gave a smile --a nasty little smile. 'Yes,' she said.

'I
have power. A little--'

'Sunlight,
you're like a customer. Alright,
sweetheart. Come.' She grabbed his hand and a vice grip and
dragged him to the side of the innkeeper.
Lecne was kneeling on one side of his father and the churgeon was
holding his good hand mutely on the other side.
Donna Cucina was sitting on her heels, praying.

Deleted User:
I can easily identify with the characters as having gone through those terrible times myself. The writer has skillfully brought yet another side of those days to life. A good read which I recommend to everyone.

NancyRichFoster:
This second book of the Anmah Series was as awesome as the first story, I disagree with spare runner. The names were ordinary names with different spellings, which I for one loved. I am now going to read the third book in this amazingly awesome story!

Kevin Brand:
My overall rating: 4.8/5 starsLoved. Every. Second. Everytime I came back to continue reading I got this overwhelming feeling of getting hooked on the first sentence... Over and over and again!The only things that were missing for me include more descriptions on what happens when Reuben touches s...

aaron10905:
This is undoubtedly one of the best books written on here. I actually unistalled this app until someone told me about this story. I came back not expecting much, just to be drawn into the story and the characters. I would buy this book in real life, as long as another was promised shortly after.

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